Dear All,
I finally completed my Crack this weekend and wanted to share some pictures of the final product. I am a complete DIY newbie and have not done any woodwork nor soldering before.
I initially received my kit in November 2013 and immediately glued the base and then set about sanding and staining it. My choice of stain was very much inspired by Clark Blumenstein's work on his chocolate Bamboo Orcas, but unfortunately it is impossible to get Tried and True varnish in Europe. I settled on an Interior Wood Stain from a German company called biopin. It seemed to be the most natural product I could find over here. After applying the first coat, and while it was still wet, I seriously considered ordering a base from Clark B. Luckily the colour of the dried stain looks much better than the colour of the wet stain. I have not applied a clear varnish, and am not sure if it is necessary, but I am very pleased with how the base turned out.
The only other cosmetic change I did was painting the transformer bell. Removed the coating as recommended by Doc B and painted two or three layers of black Hammerite paint. It was definitely not the best job I could have done, but unless you look really closely, it looks pretty good. I assembled the rest of the chassis of then set about purchasing the rest of the equipment I would need.
I paid a small fortune to get my Ideal Stripmaster Lite, but luckily everything else was available locally. Once I had everything, I guess I doubted whether I could actually complete the kit. Left it for a couple of months and finally decided to man up this weekend. Watched the beginning of Tyll Hertsens' review of the Crack, saw him attach and solder a joint or two, measured and cut some wires (generally cut about 5 in advance) and started soldering. Halfway through the build I realised that my solder joints were looking much better than the initial attempts and I reheated and touched up all of the existing solder joints.
I made one mistake with the rectifiers by placing them one terminal slot down. Luckily I noticed it with the third rectifier, but I had already soldered the first two. Spoke a few choice swear words, got out the desoldering braid, heated it up and promptly burnt my fingers.
Watched the rest of Tyll's review and noticed that he had advised holding the braid a fair distance away from the soldering iron. Struggled a little until I realised I could remove the rectifiers while the solder was hot and then remove the excess solder with the braid.
The rest of the process went quite smoothly and it took me about 8 or 9 hours in total to complete the soldering section of the build. All my resistance checks worked and now I am just waiting on the alligator clips and RCA cables to arrive. Should be here this week, then I can do the voltage checks and finally test this baby out!
Some other notes on the build itself:
1. I managed to install the power switch the wrong way, but luckily adjusting for that was quite easy.
2. At some point I decided to ensure that all the terminal holes were completely filled with solder. In hindsight that may not have been the best idea, as a) I do not think it is necessary, b) if I decide to install the Speedball upgrade there is more solder to remove and c) I still need to remove some blobs of solder from the terminal strips on the power transformer. Luckily everything is still on the metal, but that needs to be cleaned up.
3. I did not strip enough of the insulation of the wire initially and I ended melting the insulation of some of the wires.
4. I nicked some of the insulation and capacitors with the hot soldering iron by being a little careless. I doubt it did permanent damage to the capacitors, but the soldering iron now looks much more used. However, I am a little annoyed at the cosmetic damage that caused to my build.
5. I should have watched how Tyll soldered the RCA sockets before attempting it myself. Don't know if I caused any damage there or if there are any air bubbles in those joints.
As you can probably tell, I am quite proud of my first DIY attempt and can't wait to start listening to some blues.
I have to thank the Bottlehead team for their kit and the excellent manual.
Kind regards,
Gunter
I finally completed my Crack this weekend and wanted to share some pictures of the final product. I am a complete DIY newbie and have not done any woodwork nor soldering before.
I initially received my kit in November 2013 and immediately glued the base and then set about sanding and staining it. My choice of stain was very much inspired by Clark Blumenstein's work on his chocolate Bamboo Orcas, but unfortunately it is impossible to get Tried and True varnish in Europe. I settled on an Interior Wood Stain from a German company called biopin. It seemed to be the most natural product I could find over here. After applying the first coat, and while it was still wet, I seriously considered ordering a base from Clark B. Luckily the colour of the dried stain looks much better than the colour of the wet stain. I have not applied a clear varnish, and am not sure if it is necessary, but I am very pleased with how the base turned out.
The only other cosmetic change I did was painting the transformer bell. Removed the coating as recommended by Doc B and painted two or three layers of black Hammerite paint. It was definitely not the best job I could have done, but unless you look really closely, it looks pretty good. I assembled the rest of the chassis of then set about purchasing the rest of the equipment I would need.
I paid a small fortune to get my Ideal Stripmaster Lite, but luckily everything else was available locally. Once I had everything, I guess I doubted whether I could actually complete the kit. Left it for a couple of months and finally decided to man up this weekend. Watched the beginning of Tyll Hertsens' review of the Crack, saw him attach and solder a joint or two, measured and cut some wires (generally cut about 5 in advance) and started soldering. Halfway through the build I realised that my solder joints were looking much better than the initial attempts and I reheated and touched up all of the existing solder joints.
I made one mistake with the rectifiers by placing them one terminal slot down. Luckily I noticed it with the third rectifier, but I had already soldered the first two. Spoke a few choice swear words, got out the desoldering braid, heated it up and promptly burnt my fingers.
Watched the rest of Tyll's review and noticed that he had advised holding the braid a fair distance away from the soldering iron. Struggled a little until I realised I could remove the rectifiers while the solder was hot and then remove the excess solder with the braid. The rest of the process went quite smoothly and it took me about 8 or 9 hours in total to complete the soldering section of the build. All my resistance checks worked and now I am just waiting on the alligator clips and RCA cables to arrive. Should be here this week, then I can do the voltage checks and finally test this baby out!
Some other notes on the build itself:
1. I managed to install the power switch the wrong way, but luckily adjusting for that was quite easy.
2. At some point I decided to ensure that all the terminal holes were completely filled with solder. In hindsight that may not have been the best idea, as a) I do not think it is necessary, b) if I decide to install the Speedball upgrade there is more solder to remove and c) I still need to remove some blobs of solder from the terminal strips on the power transformer. Luckily everything is still on the metal, but that needs to be cleaned up.
3. I did not strip enough of the insulation of the wire initially and I ended melting the insulation of some of the wires.
4. I nicked some of the insulation and capacitors with the hot soldering iron by being a little careless. I doubt it did permanent damage to the capacitors, but the soldering iron now looks much more used. However, I am a little annoyed at the cosmetic damage that caused to my build.
5. I should have watched how Tyll soldered the RCA sockets before attempting it myself. Don't know if I caused any damage there or if there are any air bubbles in those joints.
As you can probably tell, I am quite proud of my first DIY attempt and can't wait to start listening to some blues.
I have to thank the Bottlehead team for their kit and the excellent manual.
Kind regards,
Gunter
